Industry commits to public-private innovation as the route to sustained economic growth

21 Jun 2012

Brussels – Aarhus, 21st June 2012 – Representatives of industries employing over 19 million Europeans have today underlined the critical importance of industrial innovation as a route to European economic recovery, and stated their willingness to contribute and engage with governments and the research community to ensure that this is achieved.

This is expressed in a declaration signed today at the Industrial Technologies 2012 conference by the chairs of Public Private Partnerships covering manufacturing, automotive, construction and the process industries. This follows a three day conference in which the economic and societal impact of innovative industrial technologies being developed by these partnerships has been underlined.

Industrial technologies include transforming factories through intelligent automation and integrating factories into smart business networks, developing new technologies to accelerate the implementation of energy efficient solutions in our building stock, enabling new business models and value propositions for citizens, building competitive process industries with exceptional resource efficiency, with value chain coverage to address the sustainable manufacturing requirements in Europe, and ensuring our mobility system becomes more sustainable.

The Industrial Technologies Declaration expresses the need for action and commitment from all partners, public and private. Industry will work closely with the research community in an open and responsible manner, and researchers should be willing to take research closer to market. Governments at European and national level will also play a critical role, by design favorable, consistent and coordinated framework policies and funding activities that, whilst closer to market, are still risky and knowledge-intensive, such as piloting and demonstrations.

Minister for Science, Innovation and Higher Education Morten Østergaard, says “I am very pleased that the Industrial Technologies conference has highlighted the opportunities for partnerships between the public and private sectors. Such partnerships have my wholehearted support.”

Flemming Besenbacher, the Chairman of the Carlsberg Foundation and a Professor at Aarhus University, one of the partners behind this event, added “Europe must become better at translating it’s excellent science into economic and societal benefits, and the commitment of industry to this goal is welcome.“

Pekka Koponen, the CEO of Spinverse who facilitated the declaration, added “the challenge is now to make this happen, and to combine the public side, industry, and research with the right mix of networks, attitudes and funding.”